


Get out the Vote

by PoisonKisses



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham City Sirens (Comics)
Genre: F/F, Gotham City Sirens
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-30 00:13:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8511352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoisonKisses/pseuds/PoisonKisses
Summary: The Sirens get out of Gotham and manage to find trouble anyway





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Total fluff and part of my NaNo pieces. As I post this, the results still are in the air. Hopefully everyone reading this participated. This election, anyway you twist it, is historic.

“Wake up, lazybones. Time to get up. Time to vote!” Harley groaned as Ivy slapped her flat palm against Harley’s open door with quick, staccato whacks. “Up and at ‘em! We haven’t got all day.” Harley groaned again, planted her face into the pillow and yelled. 

“Technically we do, polls don’t close til like, midnight. Go ‘way,” she finished by chucking a pillow in the general direction of the entirely too chipper redhead. Why had she become friends with a morning person? 

Ivy laughed. LAUGHED. Poison Ivy, whose sense of humor was so underdeveloped it was legendary. How many jokes had she had to stop and explain over the years? She’d lost count. She tried to curl up in her blankets and will the other woman away, but without any further argument Ivy stripped her covers away, leaving her exposed. “I said ‘UP,’ Harley Quinn!”

Harley flopped, on the verge of a tantrum, and sat up. Ivy was smirking down at her, looking rested and cheerful in a pair of green leggings tucked into knee high boots and wearing a dark green turtle neck. “I don’t wanna go ta school, ma.” Harley grumbled at her.

“If you don’t get up now, I’m going to carry you to the shower like a sack of potatoes. Selina said 10 am, and on Selina time, that’s close to noon. I know how long it takes you to shower.” Ivy crossed her arms.

Harley threw herself back on the bed. “Oh Rhett, you brute,” she wailed in her most affected and extreme southern accent, “take me up-stay-uhs and have ya’ll’s wicked way with me!” She struck her sexiest pose and dramatically batted her eyelashes.

Ivy just shook her head. “Oh, generally your pop culture references go right over my head, peanut, but I know Gone With the Wind. Your Scarlett impression is terrible. UP!”

“Fiddle dee dee,” Harley muttered as she stumbled to the shower. 

An hour later she and Ivy were climbing into Selina’s cherry red Dodge Viper—her current car of the month.

“Laaaaadies” Selina said by way of greeting. She was cool and chic in a little black dress and kitten heels, her hair touseled and sexy, great smokey eyes covered by five hundred dollar sunglasses.

“Hiya, Kitty,” Harley chirped as she hopped in.

“Selina,” purred Ivy as she buckled in and crossed her legs.

Selina pulled out, shifting confidently and racing toward the nearest bridge out of town. Harley watched curiously. “Hey, where we goin’ anyway?”

Ivy called back to her over the sound of the air passing through the window. “I registered our aliases in Craftwood a few months ago, we’re driving there to vote. It’s about forty-five minutes. I hope you went to the bathroom…”

Harley tilted her head. “Ok, I got good news and bad news. I did go, but I had a lotta Mt. Dew and, well…”

“Harley! You have to hold it for a bit until we get out of the city.” Selina shifted and sped up, cruising at a cool 90 down the interstate. 

“But, Kitty, now I’m thinkin’ about it…”

She tried, she really did, but it was almost thirty miles before the next exit (which Selina did in just under twenty minutes—with Ivy in the car actually getting ticketed for anything was laughable.) Harley did the pee pee dance all the way into the station. 

“Humans. You all have so many odd weaknesses,” Ivy mused.

Selina snickered. “Are you telling me the great and mighty Poison Ivy never has to pee?”

“I have control over my body. I can retain or evacuate fluids at will.”

“Oh my God I was kidding, you are so weird.” Selina grimaced, sticking out her tongue. Ivy made a kissy face at her. Harley came back, skipping, with a soda the size of a dirigible and a bag full of snacks. Clucking at the clown girl, she warned, “I don’t care if you drink that, but we’re not stopping again so be prepared to hold it.”

In response, Harley just stared at her and began gulping down sugary sweet carbonated deliciousness. “Hey, Red, I woulda got ya a banana but they were brown ‘n kinda mushy.”

Ivy shook her head, making her beautiful red curls bounce. “No thank you. I’m not lowering myself to eating gas station produce. My digestive needs are not—”

Selina interrupted, rolling her eyes. “Blah blah blah, oh my God you never shut up.” She pulled out as Ivy huffed, racing onto the highway at a speed that defied the word ‘safety.’

They pulled into Craftwood, a small town near Gotham City. The Sirens owned a perfectly unremarkable four bedroom, three and a half bath house with a beautifully manicured lot adjoining several thousand acres of undeveloped wooded land (that Ivy owned under a completely unrelated alias) there. On a cul-de-sac, their neighbors were perfectly nice upper middle class people who had no idea their neighbors were infamous bad girls, and that’s how the bad girls in question liked it. The understood rule was: the Craftwood safehouse was for laying low, not as a base for any activity that would bring hero types sniffing around. It was a way to get out of Gotham, something everyone needed occasionally. The Bat’s primary focus was his city, and he only occasionally left it.

Ivy dug into her bag and handed out IDs. Harley was Hailey Keane, a secretary, originally from Queens. She looked stoned in her picture. “Kitty! Where did you even get this photo?”

Selina grinned, her eyes twinkling over the rims of her shades as she looked at Harley in the mirror. “From your Instagraph account. Harley, you should never be left alone with your phone after that much Tequila. 

“WHAT? Crap.” Quickly she snatched the other IDs from Ivy who’d paused to check herself in the passenger sun visor mirror. Felicia Vasquez looked cool and collected, a mysterious smirk on her red lips and her short black curls artfully messy. Penelope Grant looked like a centerfold ready for her closeup—perfect makeup, red curls framing her flawless face. “This is not fair.”

“You snooze, you lose, Harls,” Selina said as she pulled into William B. Kaine Elementary, the polling station. The parking lot was full, and there was a short line. As she parked, Harley heard Selina mutter, “Uh oh.”

That tone meant trouble. Harley perked up when she heard it, craning her head to see. There were people around the entrance of the school, holding signs. Some were glossy, mass produced campaign materials, others hand made poster boards—all for the “bloviating, ignoramus meatsack” as Ivy referred to him. She reserved a hatred for the man that bordered on rage, and Harley knew she was pinching her nose and holding her breath to vote for the “war-loving fracking-monger” just to keep him out of the White House.

“Red, be cool,” Harley muttered, because she was already throwing her door open and starting toward the line, her heels clicking menacingly. Bemused, Selina exchanged a look with her and raced after.

“Hey, Ives, come on, we need to be low key here, right?” Selina asked, catching up to her.

Harley came up on the opposite side, concerned. As they approached the line to get in, they could hear a man with a megaphone shouting slogans.

“Are they really trying to intimidate voters?” Selina asked, slightly in awe.

“Nah, really? For real? They’re gonna try ta intimidate us?” Harley was amazed, just a hint of excitement in her voice.

“Oh, I very much hope they try,” Ivy said darkly and sped up.

A man in a ‘Make America Win Again’ hat zeroed in on them as they joined the end of the line. He was an older white man, gray in his beard, wearing a red tee shirt that had a picture of the other candidate covered over with jail bars. “Good morning, girls. I hope you’ll support America today.”

“We’re here to vote, aren’t we?” Ivy snapped, the sneer in her tone almost tangible.

“Right, ma’am, but I hope you’re making the right choice.”

“Look, mack, we ain’t buyin’ what yer sellin’ and ya betta move along,” Harley warned.

The man suddenly focused on Selina—dark-eyed, dark-haired Selina—and said, his voice hard. “And where are you from?” There was no ‘ma’am.’

“Well, originally from Gotham, the East End…but hey, I want to say whatever will set you off the most. Let’s see” and Selina put a finger to her full lips in thought, “I’m a Lesbian Muslim from Cuba. Does that help.” The man’s face few ugly and turned the color of his tacky shirt. Harley realized they were being surrounded by the sign wavers. A big guy--prison tats, trucker hat, and was that a swastika on his chest under the wife beater?—came up, using his height to try to loom.

“Maybe you three bitches should leave.”

Sadly, it was over far too quickly. Harley punched him in the nuts, and he went over like boned fish. Selina threw a couple of kicks. Ivy only lightly caressed a few people (that sent them crashing down, unconscious.)

The group was running, struggling to get in their cars. A few of the more beligerent ones were on the ground, groaning. “Well, that was—” Harley started.

“Anticlimactic?” Ivy asked.

“I sort of have blue balls. Can we stand one of these guys up again?” Selina asked.

The strangest thing suddenly happened. All around them, the people in line began to clap. It wasn’t cheering or thunderous, but the people were clearly grateful.

“Wow, is this what the Justice League gets?” Harley asked. Ivy just shook her head, grabbed Harley’s hand and began tugging her inside. 

“Come on, peanut. Let’s get this over with before the cops show up.

They voted. A nice older lady checked her ID, showed her what to do, and as she left, gave her a sticker. They took selfies. They kissed. They piled into Selina’s car and went to celebrate with burritos and margaritas. That night, they stayed up late in Selina’s loft apartment, drinking wine, eating Ivy’s delicious homemade salsa, and watching the election results.

As she slipped in bed, snuggling between Selina and Ivy she said, “This was so much fun, when is the next election?”

She giggled as Ivy and Selina both groaned and pounded her with pillows.


	2. Aftermath and Chamomile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Horrible results are dealt with in Ivy's own way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think there is any doubt how Ivy would feel about the election results.

“Hey.” Harley’s voice was soft, and she spoke from the doorway. Ivy pushed her chair back from her desk and the laptop, took off her glasses, and rubbed her eyes. She was so tired. She’d been up since before dawn, not that she ever slept while the sun was in the sky, but it had been an emotionally draining day.

People. Were. Scared.

Social media was a chorus of fear, uncertainty, hopelessness, and cynicism. The traditional heroes—the Justice League—the Supermans and Wonder Womans of the world were spouting useless platitudes about how it wouldn’t be that bad, that the country needed to come together now, that he deserved a chance to lead.

That did nothing to allay the fears of so many in this country that were something other than straight, white, Christian, and male. She’d been at it all day, reassuring people that it would not be taken lying down, that this wasn’t the time to give up or run to Canada. This was the time to dig in and fight. They needed someone to look to, someone who was definitely the enemy of the kind of racism, misogyny, homophobia, and toxic masculinity that brainless demagogue represented.

Poison Ivy found herself in an odd position: role model. She was well-known as a feminist, activist, and loud opponent to corrupt government and greedy corporatism—which the orange moron now represented. People were suddenly listening to her calls to ready for a fight, to mobilize, to organize.

She finished a post to a young trans girl promising that if the jackboots came marching, she wouldn’t be standing alone and turned with a sad smile. Harley’s hair was in a messy, bouncy high pony and she was wearing fleece sleep pants with cookie monster on them and a tee shirt that had pictures of several types of nuts that said, “I’m nuts.” She was holding two steaming mugs, and when Ivy turned she padded over on bare feet and handed her one.

“Lavender and chamomile, teaspoon of honey.” She said it simply, and Ivy smiled gratefully at her, cupping the ceramic and luxuriating in the heat on her hands. “You ok?”

Ivy nodded and took a sip. The heat felt good going down her throat. “Lot of scared people out there, Harls.”

“Yeah, I’m one of ‘em.” When Ivy turned around to check her feed, Harley continued, “Ivy, you know you’re not alone here. You don’t have to do all this for them, right?” Harley’s accent was almost gone, something she did when she wanted to be taken seriously. “You don’t owe those people anything.”

Ivy froze for a moment. “I know, but if I don’t, who will?” She took Harley’s mug from her and placed it next to her own. “I’m strong, Harley. I’m strong enough to be strong for them. I am a monster, but I can be the monster they need.”

Harley smiled at her, cupping her arms around her neck and pressing their foreheads together. “I know, Pammie. You ain’t got it in ya to just look away when people are hurting, and I love ya for it.” Her accent had slipped back in, but Ivy wasn’t complaining. She pulled Harley down into a soft, loving kiss. Harley was free of makeup, her lips tasted of the half pound of sugar she put in her tea, and Ivy held her close, loving her taste and her smell—the things that made her Harley.

She broke the kiss and idly ran her fingertips over Harley’s lips. “I’ll be late tonight. I can’t tear myself away very soon, I’m afraid."

Harley nodded, her eyes tracing Ivy’s face. “I know. Kitty is playing with her billionaire boyfriend tonight. I’m gonna watch some TV. When you’re done, I’ll have the covers warmed up for ya. That sound good?”

Ivy smiled and took another sip.

That did sound good.


	3. Protest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ivy attends one of the protests sweeping the nation and finds herself in an unusual postion.
> 
> Hero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for NaNo and this idea is getting away from me.
> 
> We need more Ivy centric stories,
> 
> we need fewer awful villains getting appearances in books while Ivy sits in limbo. She needed some payback.

“DADDY!” the little girl screamed, dropping the Barbie she was playing with in the soil and running at him as fast as her little legs would carry her. In turn, the man dropped his duffel bag (stenciled with ‘Isley 6572’) and scooped the filthy little red-headed dervish up when she reached him, tossing her in the air with ease. He was a big man--broad-shouldered, deep-chested, with large, calloused, working-man hands. Still wearing his BDUs from travel, he held her at arm’s length to keep from getting them dirty and grinned at her. She’d grown so much since he’d last seen her! Tall and skinny, freckled nose, frizzy, curly red hair (just like his, though textured more like her mother’s)and the fish-belly pale skin to match, she was covered in potting soil and had been playing in the dirt.

Pammie loved dirt, much to her mother’s chagrin. He’d always been happiest covered in engine grease himself, he understood the urge, so he knew without a doubt, Pammie would never be a woman who shied away from getting dirt under her nails. Giving it up, he finally pulled her close and hugged her tight, feeling her little arms going around his neck. She was saying ‘Daddy’ over and over again. This was the best kind of surprise.

Barkley, a yellow lab mix, was beside himself and living up to his name in between jumping and running in circles. He crouched down to rub the old mongrel behind his ears when his wife came out, a basket of laundry cocked on one shapely hip, to see what the kerfuffle was about. When she saw him, she dropped the laundry basket and was throwing her arms around him, and he was hugging her back and there were tears. Lots of them. Eventually she pulled back.

“Oh my god, why didn’t you call ahead? I’ve been working all day and Pam is…”

“Pam?” he finished for her with a grin. “I wanted to surprise you guys.” Pammie was cheering and chattering and dancing in that way that only 6 year olds know how to do—with utter joy and complete disregard for what their audience thought.

“I was going to say she’s filthy, and I’m sweaty, and all we were going to have for dinner was some squash from the garden…”

“I grew the squash, Daddy!” Pammie clapped excitedly.

He shrugged. “That sounds perfect to me, and look, we’re all filthy now. No big dea—mmmf” She cut him off with a kiss, throwing her arms around him. In return, he pulled her close, breathing in the sweet scent of her auburn curls.

“Ewwwwwww! Gross! Kissing is gross!” Pam wailed, and her parents broke apart and grinned down at her.

“Don’t believe her. She doth protest too much. Her preschool called a few weeks ago to complain she was playing ‘kiss chase’ and running around kissing every boy she could catch. A few of the girls too, which made Evelyn Preston nearly faint.”

He laughed. “I would have paid good money to see her face when she heard,” he rumbled as he scooped up Pammie and carried her inside.

“Pamela, you need to go get ready for a bath. There is no way I’m letting you sit at my dinner table looking like Pigpen.” Pammie tried to argue, and when she used the word ‘fallacious’ to describe her mother’s insistence that ‘little ladies came to dinner clean’ it just earned a chorus of laughter. Once she’d trudged off with the air of a POW being marched to her execution, her mother turned to him as he took off his top and untucked his undershirt.

“It’s unreal. I can’t keep up with her. We could go to the library twice a day and still wouldn’t be able to keep up. She understands it all, absorbs anything you put in front of her. I think we need to consider a special school…”

He agreed. Dinner was fried squash, canned green beans, and fresh-squeezed lemonade. Pammie kept up a constant narrative of everything that happened while he was away, including telling him the plot for an entire season of Xena.

Later that night, after Pammie insisted on helping him off with his boots and his wife made a batch of cookies (which they gobbled until Pammie’s face was mostly chocolate from nose to chin,) they sat on the couch winding down. His wife was dozing, and though he’d never say anything to her about it, he was concerned about the amount of grey in her curls. That was new. Pammie was asking questions, she was always asking questions.

“Did you kill any of the bad guys, Daddy?”

“No, pumpkin. I work on helicopters. I guess some of my helicopters probably did.”

“What did they do…to be bad guys?” She was in his lap, snuggled close, her cheek resting on his dog tags. He could see her little face screwed up in thought. Pammie was always thinking. He’d never met a more astute and observant child.

“Well, their boss decided another country had stuff he wanted, so he made them invade, to take it. He’s a bully. Do you know what a bully is?”

“Someone who picks on other people?”

“Right. Because he was stronger than the other country, he thought he could pick on them.”

“That’s why you have to go? To stop a bully?”

“Their boss is really bad. He is even mean to his own people, killing them and stuff. That’s why we’re there, to protect people from him.”

She nodded, her eyes big with how serious she was. “You have to protect people?”

“I’m strong.” He flexed his arm, and she was grinning and stood up, balancing on his leg on her tiny bare feet and felt his bicep. “It’s important when you’re strong to be there for other people who aren’t. You have to be strong for them.”

Pammie thought about it. “Am I strong, Daddy?”

He pretended to give it some thought. “Hmm, I don’t know, make a muscle and let’s see?” Pammie balanced and then flexed her arm. He felt her muscle and then whistled in awe. 

“Wow, you are super strong.”

She was solemn. “I promise to protect people.”

He nodded back, equally solemn. “We’re good guys. The bad guys can only win if we let them.”

Pammie hugged him. “I promise, I won’t ever let the bad guys win…”

**Now

Protest. That was the word on every Gothamite’s lips and it was massive. As other American cities experienced their own protests against the election results, Gotham’s centered on Founder’s Island, where protesters clogged streets, slowed down traffic, and brought much of the business conducted among the high rises grinding to a stop. Wayne Plaza set up refreshment tables and port-a-potties for the protesters, LexCorp promised to prosecute anyone trespassing and armed security blanketed their property. Still, for the most part, it was peaceful. GCPD was on hand to try and keep an eye on what could potentially be a very volatile situation. There was anger of course, but people weren’t violent. There were college girls taking selfies with GCPD riot cops. Commissioner Gordon was physically on hand in one of the cruisers, and news vans were everywhere.

Things were pretty reasonable until the counter protesters arrived. Sporting their distinctive red ball caps and waving signs with their signature slogan: Make America Free Again and a litany of racial and sexist slurs, calls for certain religions to be deported, for a wall to be built, for women to be grabbed (as though that wasn’t already enough of a problem.) The tension level ratcheted up when they began to jeer the original protesters. The GCPD moved in, forming a line of shield wielding riot cops between the two factions.

Poison Ivy wasn’t there as a supervillain or an eco terrorist. She’d come just to sort of…watch over…the proceedings. In a long coat, with her hair covered by a knit cap, she was just one of the crowd. She was well aware that if she acted, it would be an escalation. With Selina off playing hide the kitty claws with her billionaire boyfriend and Harley in a marathon World of Battlecraft gaming session, she’d slipped away with no one but the plants in the Greenhouse knowing, and they weren’t telling—at least not to anyone she was currently living with (her Sporeling girls could have figured it out, but they were on the road and, at least for the moment, out of reach.)

She hoped they were safe—the subject of these protests had said some chilling things about metas and aliens and his knuckle dragging followers wouldn’t care about the subtleties of what Rose, Hazel, and Thorn actually were.

She really hadn’t meant to get involved at all. She didn’t. Her hand was forced, however, when two vans pulled up, and men got out, men from the Free Patriots, a fringe militia like group of red hat supporters who endorsed the demagogue. These guys were serious, and she felt a chill run down her spine. Wearing tight tee shirts, sporting swastikas and crosses and far less savory tattoos and each one wearing an American flag bandanna over the lower half of his face, they quickly dispersed among the regular supporters and added loud voices to the counter protest. A couple were armed—sidearms in open carry holsters--and two actually had AR-15s on slings. Ivy immediately began pushing her way to the front, many of the protesters lowering their signs or even falling back, frightened of the firearms. To their credit, GCPD officers converged on the armed men, and loud arguments about whether or not they could be there, armed as they were, ensued. All the while, other Patriots were openly filming with cell phone cameras, baiting the officers to act.

It was a powder keg waiting for a match.

That match came in the form of a small black woman wearing a GGF hoodie, Green Gotham First. Ivy knew her, Maxine “Max” Jensen was a frequent poster on the GGF message boards and an incendiary figure on social media for causes ranging from Black Lives Matter to NoDAPL to the Shut Down Arkham Project. Ivy kind of loved her.

She slipped between two officers as Ivy was nearing and she heard one mutter, “Oh, don’t, stop.” His partner laughed, and she realized they were in on it. ‘Oh no’ was all she could think as Max went up to one of the AR-15 guys and began loudly telling him what she thought of him.

“Shut up, before our new president shuts you up.” And then he called her a racial slur. Max slapped him. In hindsight, maybe she shouldn’t have done that, but without a second’s hesitation, the man whipped his rifle butt around and cracked her across the face. She went down with a scream, hit the pavement hard. Ivy saw blood. The two cops were laughing. The guy who hit her said, “Oops, did I do that?” The cops laughed harder. No one was doing anything.

Except Poison Ivy.

She stepped up, feeling her skin tingle as it strengthened. One of the cops saw her and held up a hand. “Back in the crowd lady,” he began. She grabbed his hand and sent him flying, the second cop reached for his gun and she punched him in the gut. The riot gear saved him from most of the force, but it was still enough to send him crashing to the ground, the wind knocked out of him. The Patriot leveled his rifle at her. 

“Pull that trigger and die, meat.” She snarled. She could see a second man approaching, a slender girl in a long coat behind him. Around her people were surging back, clearing a space, trying to get away from the scene.

Ivy clenched a fist, reaching out through the Green. There wasn’t much to work with. Twenty yards away was a young tree, a carefully maintained plot of grass. Deep below them were ancient, slumbering roots. She had maybe a dozen vines ready to fast grow with her, but nothing like the variety she enjoyed when on a mission. She coaxed the roots awake and felt them begin to snake their way up through the earth as she warily eyed the two approaching. They were moving quickly, moving toward the tension, like they were expecting it, and they didn’t register right to her senses. The man was completely lacking in symbiotic flora that every other human on the planet had. He wasn’t a dead zone, just unusual. The girl was completely dead to her senses—no interior live flora, nothing on her skin. In fact, Ivy could sense tiny deaths with every step she took, as though she were leeching the life out of every microscopic organism that came in contact with her.

Not life, she realized with a start. Heat. She’s freezing everything she touches to death. The man? He was covered inside and out with bacteria and even had seeds embedded in and through him, as though he were walking…soil?

Then she knew who she was dealing with. The girl dropped her coat, revealing her blue and white outfit. The man began to morph, taking on a monstrous, brutish shape made of living mud. Killer Frost and Clayface.

“Poison Ivy,” Frost began, a triumphant, smug smirk on her thin lips. “They knew you wouldn’t be able to resist this shit.”

“Bitch.” Clayface snarled, rising to his full height and towering over her. “You and me got business.”

Ivy’s brain was already working, bringing up every piece of data she knew about these two. Absentmindedly she corrected, “’You and I,’ how are you this illiterate, Basil?”

“That’s right. Piss me off. I was paid to just kill you, but I think I’ll have some fun with you first. It’s what our president would do,” and he launched himself at her as Frost angled to the side, fanned her hand out, and sent three shards of razor sharp ice flying at her.

With her skin hardened, she dismissed the ice as a threat. The shards were razor sharp but weren’t heavy and weren’t thrown with a great deal of force. Clayface, on the other hand, was a thousand pounds of living mud hurtling at her. She wasn’t Selina or Harley and knew she wouldn’t be able to cleanly dodge both. The ice struck first, breaking apart in sparkling shards upon impact—she didn’t even feel them, her skin as impenetrable as incredibly dense wood. Clayface hit her, a cruel, satisfied grin splitting his brutish features—he was, at his roots, the exact type of abusive male so attracted to the red hats and by extrapolation the Patriots. Ivy wasn’t surprised he’d take money to kill her, despite the rumors he was working for Batman now. Yet SHE was the villain?

She didn’t understand humans.

The blow did little harm but the force knocked her back, sending her skidding on the pavement. He went for her again, his arm forming into an axe blade. Behind and to the side, Frost was preparing to project cold, Ivy knew she resorted to that in 92% of her encounters. Fortunately, certain Justice Leaguers were very thorough in their after action reports, many of which were public domain. She mentally thanked Flash when Frost projected cold toward her.

It wasn’t like a visible blast the way Hollywood would have you believe. The visual component came from water molecules in the air freezing into ice crystals upon hitting absolute zero. As Clayface chopped down, she dove to the side, using his bulk as a shield. Frost and Clayface weren’t normal partners, they didn’t know how to work together, and she heard him shriek when she froze his arm solid.

“Fuckin’ bitch, watch what—” he began, but Ivy had already stood back up. She shed her coat and used one of her vines to form around her, crafting her own outfit as the plant contoured to her curves. Time to teach these amateurs, these D-listers, they weren’t dealing with some run-of-the-mill low-level thug. They were in the big leagues now. 

They were fighting Poison Ivy.

The Green was with her, a shining force of energy empowering her, strengthening her senses, connecting her to every living and growing green thing on the planet. It was profound, humbling, a sensation this particular brain trust couldn’t have hoped to understand—she didn’t even think her two closest friends, Harley and Selina, really GOT it. 

There was a reason she was always supremely confident. She would win. These two would lose, and they didn’t even know it yet.

At the speed of thought a vine snapped out and shattered Clayface’s arm into a million glistening pieces. Clayface was difficult to injure physically, but he did have a finite amount of biomass. He roared in pain and shock as Frost fired again. She fanned her hands out in concentration, and Ivy knew she was projecting in a wider pattern, turning her power into a shotgun rather than a sniper shot. She did this in 80% of her encounters with the Flash, who was too fast to individually target. It meant her power was less extreme, but a blast of forty degrees below was still debilitating, even if it was shy of the absolute zero she was capable of. On top of that, the shotgun blast of cold would hit every person behind her as well. 

A vine snapped and flowered in between two ticks of a clock, forming a natural barrier. By the next second, once it had fanned out into a huge shield, Ivy hardened it. Frost’s blast froze it solid, just as Ivy knew it would, and she thrust out with it with enough force to stagger Wonder Woman. Frost had an almost comical look on her face when it slammed her into the news van behind her with bone crunching force. As the other woman crumpled, Ivy caught the full force of Clayface’s mace fist on her upper back, which drove her to her knees, and a second blow crunched her to the ground, leaving an Ivy shaped crater in the asphalt. She grunted from the force, struggling to maintain her concentration. It hurt, and a third blow caught her in the back of the head, driving her face into the hard surface.

“Hurts, don’t it, bitch? What I’m about to do’s gonna hurt worse. Lie still, it’ll all be over in a minute.” He cackled.

Ivy held her concentration—it took more than a little pain to slow her down or stop her. She gritted her teeth as she felt mud tendrils wrapping around her wrists and forcing her arms painfully behind her back. She knew exactly what he was doing—in 98% of his encounters with Batman, Basil eventually attempted to engulf and smother, and she felt tendrils wrapping around her belly, her neck, winding in her long hair, her thighs. He was trying to frighten her, undermine her willpower with the rape threats, but as a man, his assumption that they would petrify her was part of her equation. Theatrically, she gasped out, “No, please no!” He laughed his ugly laugh again, secure in his victory now, and she closed her eyes and clamped her mouth shut as she was consumed.

It was horrifying. Her whole body was encased in slimy mud, and she could feel it trying to slither its way past her plant based outfit. He spoke, and his voice echoed around her in an all-consuming, inescapable way. “I’m not Harley Quinn. You’re not gonna enjoy this.”

She concentrated, changed her body chemistry, and almost instantly she heard Clayface gurgle in pain as she began to secrete concentrated acid, a trick she’d learned years ago to dissolve her way out of things like handcuffs. This was even more potent, and the effect on his biological particulate body was instantaneous and catastrophic. He lurched away from her, screaming, everywhere he’d been touching her flesh blackening and withering as the acid hungrily ate its due. She shivered, sure she’d be taking about a thousand showers tonight. The math in her head made that scenario seem much more pleasant than the reality. Behind her, Killer Frost was back on her feet. She was staggered, with one hand outstretched to attack, her other held tightly to her body. Broken? Ivy was reaching out to the roots below her, hoping Frost would be too distracted to attack right away. 

She’d hurt Basil, and knew he’d try to escape as soon as he could, but for now he was writhing and screaming, unable to actually assume a humanoid form. Frost would project cold again any moment now, but she was also staggering toward her, hoping to use physical contact.

With a satisfying crunch, the roots she’d been singing to all along finally broke free of the pavement, and she quickly sculpted them into a hollow sphere, surrounding Clayface’s burning corpus and sealing him in. She took a moment to make sure it was air tight, wrapping lairs of woody tissue around him and imprisoning him. His screams were muffled and then silent.

“One cunt-sicle coming up,” she heard Frost snarl, and her body reacted instantly when a blast of arctic temperatures struck her full force in the back. She cried out in initial agony, her skin painfully freezing solid before her biochemistry reacted. The cells all along her body--the cells in her skin--grew pliable membranes and expelled excess water before it could freeze, expand, and kill them—just like a tree surviving winter. She screamed and dropped to her knees, all the while prepping for what she knew Frost would do next.

“So much for Poison Ivy. I think it will be poetic to kill you with a kiss.” Frost reached down and snatched her up by the throat, her hand wrapping around Ivy’s neck. If she’d been paying attention, she might have noticed that she wasn’t actively leeching heat from Ivy—but Frost was a distracted fighter at the best of times, her own hunger for heat keeping her attention to detail at a minimum. Ivy glared at her and Frost’s blue lips curled into a victory smile. “Pucker up, bitch.” She kissed her.

It only lasted a couple of seconds when Frost tried to pull back, dimly aware something was wrong, but Ivy wrapped her arms around the other woman, holding her in place, making sure the kiss went on long enough to pass the toxin over. With a gasp, Frost collapsed, every motor nerve in her body shutting down. She stared up helplessly as Ivy crouched next to her.

“You’re an idiot, Frost. There are certain species of mountain pine trees that can withstand intense amounts of cold…natural antifreeze, you see. You’re also a terrible kisser.” Her punch broke the other woman’s jaw and knocked her out co--no she wouldn’t even think that. That was a pun even Harley would groan at. “Enjoy Belle Reve.”

She stood, assessing. She’d taken severe cellular damage from that last doze of frostbite and could feel pain radiating as her body adjusted, but it was already healing. Frost was out, Clayface was contained in a wooden sphere—he wasn’t even struggling within it. A silence had fallen during the fight, and thousands of eyes were on her. There were suddenly Patriots leveling their weapons at her, the sound of guns being cocked. Ivy eyed the men in the flag masks and mentally sang to the roots below them, readying her defense, mindful of all the activists behind her. 

“That’s it, stand down right now, every goddamned one of you!” a man yelled, stalking onto the scene. He was in a rumpled suit, an old, tattered trench coat thrown over it. Glasses, white hair, mustache. Jim Gordon looked like he’d stepped out of a different era, one where cops were still mostly decent and honest, except when they were dirty. He radiated strength and control, had the sort of charisma that men and women instinctively followed. He and Ivy were rarely on the same side, but she knew him to be a fair man in a world that was too often unfair. Behind him, his pretty daughter was watching with hard eyes—eyes too hard for her young age, in fact-and taking everything in. She was in a leather jacket and wore glasses, her bright red hair in a messy pony, her lips drawn into a thin line. Ivy knew the expression on her face—a need to do something, to protect, to avenge—Ivy wore it too often herself. She liked that girl instantly.

The Patriots immediately stood down, lowering their weapons. The man who’d struck Max spoke up. “Officer, this crazy SJW meta,” and not only did he use the phrase ‘SJW’ out loud and without a trace of irony, he sneered the word ‘meta’ with as much loathing as he could humanly articulate, “just assaulted two of your men and waged a superpowered fight in the middle of a crowd of innocent people.”

Gordon gave her a glare. Mentally, she cursed, suddenly realizing she’d just earned herself another ticket to Arkham. She needed to learn to lay low and let things go.

“Save it, I saw the whole thing. In fact, the whole scene played out on live news coverage. This citizen was protecting a protester you assaulted. You’re under arrest.” The man began to argue, cops surrounded them, the Patriot weapons went back up. Ivy didn’t like the math—too many flying bullets would create a lot of collateral damage. She’d been singing softly to the roots all along, and now she acted. As quick as striking snakes, roots burst through the asphalt in front of each patriot, snatching guns and dragging them away from startled, chilled hands. In seconds the Patriots were being tackled by GCPD. Then it happened.

All along the line behind her, the protesters began to applaud. Self-consciously, Ivy turned and realized with a start they were clapping and cheering for her. It was an entirely new experience. Then suddenly Max was hugging her, chattering about how she’d ‘galvanized the movement.’ She…awkwardly…hugged back. She’d never been a particularly huggy person, despite Harley’s best efforts.

Gordon approached her. “Ivy.” His voice was calm, his eyes locked on her face, unlike most men, though in his approach he’d spared her a once over. He was still human.

“Commissioner.”

“You did good work tonight. Would you mind coming down to the station and giving a statement?” He’d fished a pack of cigarettes out of his chest pocket and was working one out. She reached out and covered his hand with her own, causing him to look up sharply.

“You should quit. Not only are they terrible for you, but the amount of arable land wasted growing a nutritionally useless crop is obscene.” She softened her words with a slight smile, and behind him, she noticed his daughter grinning at her. “And no, I don’t mind. You should know, Commissioner, this was a trap laid for me. Someone knew I’d be here, I was drawn out for these two to kill…”

“Bit off more than they could chew?” He asked, a quirky smile on his lips.

“Amateurs. Don’t send peons to kill a big bad.” He laughed. 

“If you need protection until we figure this out, just ask, Ivy. You don’t have to face this alone.”

“Thank you Commissioner, but I’m not alone, I have friends. I just need to make a quick call…?” At his nod, she stepped away and hit her second speed dial. When she answered, Ivy told her, “Hey, it’s me. I presume you saw. I have a mystery enemy, and I’m going to need help ferreting him out. Let’s plan to pay our old friend Eddie a visit.”


	4. Old Things Remembered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Selina and Ivy decide to figure out who is behind the attacks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somehow what was originally a voting piece, pure fluff, morphed into a long form fic that features a lot of firsts in Ivy's life, I don't know why, but that is what happened.
> 
> Also there may be a snide line or two referring to what DC is doing to two of my favorite characters in Rebirth. I'm not happy ;)

**Then  
It was a quiet night in Gotham City, and that’s the way Selina Kyle liked it.

The City was still catching its collective breath after some maniac had held it hostage with a bomb and a hostage crisis while playing a deadly game of wits with the mysterious Batman. Selina had caught a glimpse of the ridiculous nerd being carted off by the GCPD in a grainy image on the shitty TV sitting in her shitty Narrows hovel/apartment—one she shared with Holly, and the two girls had laughed until they spilled their bottle of cheap wine on their cheaper, flea-bitten rug and four cats had pounced on the stain.

Holly was as much a stray as those four flea-bitten felines, a young hooker that Selina had taken in before the Streets of the East End had a chance to chew her up and swallow her. Most in Holly’s position didn’t last past seventeen. Holly was a mature fifteen, even if she was too skinny from lack of food and a heroin habit that Selina was helping her drop. Some sleaze had filled Holly’s head up with stories about love, gotten her to drop out of Gotham High East (not that Holly’s grades were stellar,) and work the streets for him with dreams of being a dancer and then an actress. It was a story that replayed itself nightly, but Selina had broken the cycle. Selina was savvy enough to know she couldn’t save them all, but she had made the choice to save Holly.

Unfortunately they’d BOTH be on the streets soon if Selina didn’t get a solid score. Her shitty apartment was cheap, but it wasn’t free, and her scuzzy landlord would boot them in a heartbeat unless rent was forthcoming or at least one of them was willing to come to “a different arrangement.” Gag. 

Mickey, a broker and fence she'd known since she first started picking tourists' pockets near the park, came through, of course. The Gotham Museum had just started an Egyptian exhibit. Lots of dusty, boring old Mummies and Archaeology, but they also had a pair of stylized birds made from solid gold and jade. Mickey had a buyer, they just needed to be liberated from what was possibly the most lax security in the museum system. Selina had snagged a couple of minor things in the Museum annex for Mickey already, but this? This was the main building, this was the featured exhibit, this was the big time and would be her biggest score yet. Ten Gs for each was her cut, she could stand to make twenty grand in a single night. 

This city was getting crazy, she reflected with absolutely no sense of irony as she stood on a deco gargoyle at the northwest corner of the Synth-Tec building and watched the darkened, eerily gothic, old museum building through a pair of mini binoculars. She was in her Catwoman suit—literally a costume with kitty ears on it, and she was about to commit grand larceny. Still, between that nut dressed as a clown trying to poison the reservoir and last week’s riddle guy—both of whom were stopped by a guy dressed as a bat, she felt like a bit of theatricality wasn’t a terrible thing. 

She’d seen him from a distance. Tall, scary, broad shouldered and in a suit so black he appeared to be a patch of darkness more dark than the shadows around him. Most of the streets were terrified of him, thinking a demon had come to Gotham to punish crime. Selina knew better. He’d caught her robbing a very wealthy Gothamite lady’s penthouse, and given chase. It had been—exhilarating. She’d led him across the city before losing him in the mazelike warrens of the Narrows. That’s how she knew he was a man—she’d heard him grunt in pain when he missed a landing she made. Demons didn’t do that. They also didn’t need ziplines or ropes to climb.

For three days she’d been perching here and studying the place—planning her entry, watching the guards’ flashlights, memorizing patterns but never doing anything that would attract attention. She was thinking of going tomorrow night…

And that plan was ruined when she spotted a slender finger land on the roof. “No no no no no, Goddammit,” she snarled. Who the hell was that? They were going to spoil everything and set her back weeks. With no further thought she launched herself in the air, the feeling of free fall making her heart race and with practiced ease, she snapped her whip out and swung gracefully. She was fabulous, and she knew it, making it all look easy, making the best parkour stars look like rank amateurs. Selina was the best thief in Gotham, and there was no way some rube was going to mess up this huge score for her.

She landed as silent as a swooping owl and moved quickly, approaching where the mysterious thief was crouching near one of the main building sky lights. If this person screwed up, or even succeeded, the security would be doubled or even tripled, and the whole exhibit might be moved if its home in Cairo decided the risk was too great. As Selina approached, she realized the crouching figure was a woman. From behind, Selina could see she had thick, fiery red curls that fell past her slender waist and she was bent over whatever it was she was doing. Selina could hear her muttering under her breath, but couldn’t make out words.

“Hey!” she called, and the woman jumped to her feet and whirled in shock. She was wearing, well, a green corset, green stockings tucked into knee high green leather boots with matching green leather opera gloves. There was a leaf pattern worked into the leather of the corset, and vines and flowers in the lace of her hose. Great, another costumed crazy (again with no trace of irony about her own dress,) only this one looked like she was on her way to a fetish club rather than crime. She was holding a test tube with some sort of clear liquid in it.

Selina was irritated, but damn this girl was downright beautiful. Selina was an attractive woman and hadn’t been shy about using that fact in the past to get her way, but the tall redhead (and in those heels Selina’s eyes were chin level to her) looked like a Playhouse centerfold. She was lush, leggy, her waist made tiny by the cinched in corset and her cleavage so deep you could lose your car keys in there, or maybe your car. She had big green eyes, tilted exotically, with thick lashes and lips that looked so full and soft she could have been a lipstick model. Her skin was very pale—so pale she almost looked green in the lights, but rather than detract it gave her an exotic, almost gothic look, like a porcelain statue come to life. Beautiful, but dumb, thought Selina. She looked almost like a deer in the headlights, caught in the act. Selina couldn’t help herself.

“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

“What…who are you? What do you want?” Of course the woman’s voice would match the rest of her—deep and raspy and breathy. She sounded like Jessica Rabbit. Looked a bit like her too with that bustline, those eyes, and that hair, thought Selina.

Selina stepped around to see what she’d been doing and could see the skylight locks had been corroded. OH, she thought. “Trying to eat through the steel with acid?” She asked lightly, conversationally.

“Well,” the girl started. Selina didn’t think she was any older than her own 22, to be honest. “That was the idea, but it’s not working. This is very concentrated, I’d hoped to be in and out by now.”

“It’s not a bad idea. I’ve done it myself, but these locks are acid resistant. It will work, if you have a few hours to spare. It also leaves a trail—” The girl stared at her, than down at her test tube. “And you’ll definitely need more than that.”

“So you’re saying I should just break in?” the girl said, and Selina quickly shook her head.

“Oh no, don’t do that. That will mean an alarm. Cops. Maybe even the Batman.” She flinched.

“No, I don’t want to deal with him.”

“Never done much in the way of crime?” Selina asked, not unsympathetic.

“No. I’ve never had to before. I’m new to all this.”

“Well, kid, we were all new once. Who are you anyway?”

“I’m not a kid. I’m Pam—I mean, Poison Ivy.”

“Oh, I like that, it’s catchy. So what’s your deal anyway? What’s in there?” Selina indicated the museum with a tilt of her head.

“There is an Egyptian exhibit, one of the canopic jars is filled with preserved seeds. Imagine getting to see a plant genome as it was four thousand years ago? There may even be extinct species. I want to—” Selina interrupted her.

“Ok look. I don’t care about the sciency stuff. There are a couple of golden birds—”

“The Adherents of Thoth,” the girl supplied.

“Right, those. Someone wants them, and I’m going to get them. Since you’re not wanting the same thing, what say we call it for tonight, compare notes, and then try this thing tomorrow?” The girl considered her for a moment.

“You have the advantage here. Who are you?”

“I’m Catwoman.” On a whim, she pulled off her goggles and pushed back her hood. “My real name is Selina Kyle. I’m the greatest thief that ever lived.”

The woman grinned, and Selina liked the way it lit up her eyes and curled those lips up. “Well, my real name is Pamela Isley. And I am…uh…Mother Nature’s chosen protector.” 

Selina laughed as they approached the edge of the roof.

“Can the chosen protector get down from here without help?” 

The redhead glanced back at her. “Try and keep up, Selina.” She then dove off the building and an honest to God vine shot from her arm, caught a nearby building, and she swung like freaking Tarzan away.

Selina stared, slack jawed for a few moments. Then she leapt, snapping her whip out to catch her descent, and swung after Poison Ivy. “I hate this town,” she muttered.

**Now

“What do you mean you need to go? I was hoping…” Bruce was saying as Selina Kyle turned her phone off with a beep and padded over to one of the heated bathrobes hanging up near the whirlpool. Bruce was still seated in the water but not relaxed as he made to rise as well after the call from Ivy.

“I know exactly what you were hoping, it’s still pretty clear,” she said with a vague gesture at his middle, which caused him to blush, deeply, and sit back down in the water. “You wanted me to spend the night because, for once, you took it off and left one of your fourteen million adopted kids and proteges actually watch over the city which, by the way, let me just say that for a lonely avenger of the night, you have more surrogate family than a celebrity. I don’t even know half of em anymore.” As she spoke, she was vigorously drying off and collecting her clothing—where was her bra anyway?—and mentally planning the rest of the night out.

He looked sheepish, reaching behind his head to scratch. “Well, I mean I thought that was the plan, who was that anyway?”

“You saw the news story. Guess.” She rolled her eyes at him.

“Ivy?”

Selina laughed. “Wow, you ARE the World’s Greatest Detective!”

His brow furrowed, making that little line on the bridge of his nose that meant she was irritating him. “What did she want?”

“Well, given that two meta thugs made the huge mistake of trying to kill her, she wants help figuring out who sent them. Maybe you should have a talk with mudman since you’ve deemed him worthy of redemption?” She couldn’t help a bit of bite in her tone. It would have been nice to have been asked, even if she’d have turned him down. Sometimes Bruce treated her like a serial killer with over 200 kills to her credit.

“There will be a talk. If you need help with this, why are you leaving. I can…”

“No, Bruce. You treat Ivy and Harley like maniacs who need to be locked up.” She was getting angry. This subject always came up when she brought up her friends. Having finally found her bra, she slipped it on and began clasping it.

He interrupted her. “They’re killers, Selina. Stone cold killers.”

“So is Clayface. The difference is they’re women—know what? I’m done with this conversation,” she said as she angrily yanked her top over her head. 

“Selina,” he started in a pacifying tone.

“Save it, Bruce. Ivy and Harley have killed, yes, but you act like they’re practically Zsasz. We both know that’s not true. They’re my friends, and when it comes right down to it, they’ve had my back when you were too busy playing hero. She was snatching her bag to storm out in an appropriately dramatic huff when he came out of the water, snatched his own robe, and chased her down. 

“Selina, I’m just concerned about you. Those two are damaged—they’re going to go down hard, eventually, and they’ll end up taking you with them.”

“We all ‘go down’ at one point or another, Bruce. Those two are the only people in this world I KNOW will come if I call. Yeah, that even includes you.” She crossed her arms and glared at him, daring him to argue further.

To his credit, he didn’t deny it. They both knew it would just take a choice between helping her or stopping the Joker and she’d lose out. “Fine. I don’t have to like it. You know if you need my help, I’ll come if I can.” She arched an eyebrow at him, and he continued. “That goes for them, too, if they need my help.” She quirked her lip up, smiling with one corner of her mouth. “Who are you going to go get help from, anyway?”

“Eddie.” She winked when she said it, and almost burst out laughing when his frown deepened.

“Oh, come on Selina, at least—”

“No, it’ll be him. Ivy has him so terrified of her he’ll do everything in his power to help just to get her out of his office.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I don’t care.”

He looked like he wanted to argue further, but she cut him off with a quick kiss. “Bruce, it’s sweet, and I know your concern is coming from a good place, but I don’t need you holding my hand. I’ll be fine.”

His lips quirked up in what was almost a grin. “I know you will. Forgive the phrase, but you always land on your feet.”

“Now if you’ll just give Ivy the benefit of the doubt?”

“Ivy…has the right ingredients. She could be a hero. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt for now, but if she starts hurting innocent people, I’ll take her out. No leniency.”

Selina nodded. “If she goes off the rails, I’ll help you do it. But she won’t.”

Ivy was waiting for her near the Gotham museum, not far from where they first met. She was wearing a long coat, stylish heeled boots disappearing into the hem, gloves, a hat, and if Selina hadn’t know she was an eco terrorist super villain, she’d have thought…well…a centerfold was waiting on her. Ivy just didn’t have low profile in her DNA.

Selina pulled up and Ivy slipped in the car. “Hey, sexy. Wanna go get a drink or something?” Selina asked with a grin. Ivy flashed her a smile—really a quirk of her full lips that translated to ‘I know you’re joking with me and I find it mildly amusing but this is the extent I’ll show it.’

“No, but I do want to go terrify a scrawny worm for a few hours.”

“Let’s do this.” Selina put the car in gear and the two women pulled out into traffic.


End file.
